Labour-run council faces legal action over trans pedestrian crossing
Camden council installed the painted blue, pink and white crossings nearly four years ago in Bloomsbury in a bid to 'help celebrate transgender awareness ' and to act 'as a reminder of the rich LGBT+ history in Camden.'
But Camden resident Blessing Olubanjo is now threatening to bring a legal challenge to have the four crossings at Tavistock Place and Marchmont Street removed or redesigned, because she claims it 'constitutes unlawful political messaging.'
The 57-year-old claims the installations, which cost £10,464 in taxpayers' money, constitute a violation of political neutrality laws under the Local Government Act 1986, as well as an infringement of freedom of belief and expression under the Human Rights Act 1998.
The NHS administrator, who is an Evangelical Christian, told The Telegraph: 'I brought this case because I believe in fairness, freedom of belief, and the proper role of public institutions.
'As a Christian and a taxpayer, I should not be made to feel excluded or marginalised by political symbols in public spaces.
'This crossing sends a message that only one viewpoint is welcome, and that's not right in a truly democratic society.
'I'm standing up not just for myself, but for everyone who feels silenced or sidelined by discredited, harmful activism forced on the public by ideologically captured local authorities.'
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, who is supporting Ms Olubanjo, added: 'Not only is this crossing a matter of public safety and Christian freedom, it's about the misuse of public resources for political campaigning.
'The crossing is a visual endorsement of a contested ideology, installed by a public authority in breach of its legal duties.
'This is not the role of local government. Public spaces should be able to be used by everyone, not to advance divisive agendas that alienate people of faith and those who hold to biological reality.
'The Council needs to remove or redesign the crossing and apologise to its residents and local businesses.'
At the time the plans were announced in Autumn 2021, the Royal National Institute for the Blind also told the council that colourful designs at crossings could cause confusion to the blind and pose safety risks to those with poor vision trying to cross the busy street.
Transport for London's Independent Disability Advisory Group also said people with learning disabilities or dementia may struggle to identify the crossing.
They also warned that people with sensory sensitivity could struggle with colourful crossings, which could cause anxiety, especially for people on the autistic spectrum.
Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at human rights charity Sex Matters, said there was no 'conceivable justification' for the crossings to be in place after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the 2010 Equality Act 'refer to a biological woman and biological sex.'
The women's rights campaigner added to The Telegraph: 'The trans flag crossings in Camden are not only a safety issue for the blind, disabled and elderly, but a costly exercise in celebrating a flag that represents unforgivable medical harms done to gender-distressed children in the name of 'progress'.'
The crossing is also located in the same borough as the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which ran the UK's only gender identity development service for children. The youth gender clinic at the Tavistock and Portman centre closed early last year, ahead of plans to open regional hubs across England and Wales as part of recommendations made in the Cass Report.
However, the council has insisted that the crossing had no relation to the gender clinic.
Camden Council said they reject the claims in Ms Olubanjo's legal letter.
A spokesman added: 'Camden is 'no place for hate' and we have a strong and continuing history of respect and support for everyone in our borough. We fight discrimination in all its forms, and this includes being an ally to our trans residents.
'These crossings are a visual statement to help celebrate transgender awareness and act as a reminder of the rich LGBTQ+ history and daily life in the Bloomsbury area and across Camden.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
27 minutes ago
- The Independent
Met Police chief says football clubs should pay for their own policing
Football clubs should contribute more of their own money to the £70 million cost of policing their matches, Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has said. A 'polluter pays approach' should be adopted for policing football games, Sir Mark said, as he questioned why organisers of events which require policing do not pay for it. It comes after Sir Mark expressed disappointment in a Sunday Times article at Chancellor Rachel Reeves' decision to increase police funding by 2.3 per cent above inflation each year in the recent spending review. Appearing on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Mark was pushed on how the Met plans on cutting costs. He cited heavy job losses in the Met police force, but also pointed at other opportunities to cut expenditure. 'It also falls elsewhere. Policing of football matches across the country, mainly Premier League, cost policing £70 million it doesn't get back from football clubs. In London, it's more than a third of that,' he told the BBC. There should be a 'polluter pays approach', he said, adding: 'If you're running a profit making event that because of the nature of it, requires security, requires policing to support your security because of the criminality that is going to be experienced, why isn't the organiser paying for that, rather than local communities who lose their resources to go to football matches?' Sir Mark has also called for an uphaul of the UK's current 43-force policing system to help streamline costs. The creation of 12 to 15 bigger police forces would allow authorities to better utilise modern technology and would reduce 'expensive' governance and support functions. 'The 43-force model was designed in the 1960s and hasn't been fit for purpose for at least two decades,' Sir Mark wrote in The Sunday Times. 'It hinders the effective confrontation of today's threats and stops us fully reaping the benefits of technology. 'We need to reduce the number of forces by two-thirds, with the new bigger and fully capable regional forces supported by the best of modern technology and making better use of the limited funding available.' Asked about the cuts he plans to make to policing, Sir Mark said: 'So we've cut 1,600 over the last couple of years… 1,700 officers and staff this year, that 3,300 out of an organisation just over 40,000 is a big hit.' The Met has not got all of the details on the spending settlement but Sir Mark is 'nervous about whether we'll be able to make ends meet with that', he said, which is why he is calling for police reform. Put to him that he had warned he would have to de-prioritise some crimes, and asked what the force will not investigate, Sir Mark said: 'So I don't want policing activity to fall off the list, and I know that the mayor and the Home Secretary have pushed hard for the most police funding that we can get. 'We are determined to improve day in and day out experiences of Londoners on the streets. We can only do that if we focus ruthlessly on police work. 'When new recruits join they expect they're going to spend most of their time protecting the public, enforcing the law, catching criminals. Within a couple of years 80% of them are saying 'I spend most of my time safeguarding the vulnerable, that's critical work, but that's not the core work of policing'. 'So we need help to cut away some of these areas where other pressed public services have effectively pushed work to the police. There are 80,000 missing children from children's home a year in the country. That is really problematic.' Sir Mark said the police reforms are 'essential', adding: 'If we look at the spending on policing and public safety from the 80s through to the noughties, it was a much higher level than it is today. Over the last decade or more, the proportion that governments are prepared to put to policing is much lower. I don't see that changing dramatically. 'So we've got to make the best use of every pound that governments can give to us.'
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
Conservatives will look to amend Government welfare Bill
The Conservatives will try to change the Government's welfare Bill to tighten up access to personal independence payments (Pip) and universal credit. Kemi Badenoch will pledge that the Tories are 'now the only party committed to serious welfare reform' after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer shelved plans to restrict eligibility for Pip in the face of a backbench revolt this week. Ministers have warned there will be costs to their backtracking on the plans, as Downing Street and the Treasury will be looking to cover the spending shortfall left by the decision. The Tories will look to lay amendments to the legislation – set to be renamed the Universal Credit Bill – and party leader Mrs Badenoch is due to deliver a speech on welfare on Thursday. Among the amendments the Conservatives will propose is a requirement for eligibility for Pip to be determined by a face-to-face meeting, rather than virtually. As part of the Government's reforms, the Department for Work and Pensions has proposed a new 'severe conditions criteria' for universal credit. Claimants in this category will be entitled to a higher rate of the benefit, and will not be routinely reassessed to receive money. Another of the Conservatives' amendments would prevent somebody from being classed as having a severe condition for the purpose of universal credit only by having anxiety, mild depression, or ADHD. The third amendment would block the increase in universal credit and restrict Pip for some people who are not British citizens. In her welfare speech, Mrs Badenoch is expected to say that the Conservatives are 'the only party that is prepared to take the tough decisions to get spending under control'. 'I have no doubt that, emboldened by their success in forcing Starmer to U-turn last week, Labour's backbench MPs will now be eyeing up more concessions,' she will say. The original welfare proposals had been part of a package that ministers expected would save up to £5 billion a year, and economists are now warning that tax rises are likely to plug the gap left by the concessions to rebels. On Friday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves admitted that the fallout over the Government's welfare Bill had been 'damaging' and did not rule out tax rises in the autumn budget. It came after images of the Chancellor crying during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday spooked the financial markets and led to questions about her future, although a spokesman said she was upset by a personal matter. In an interview with The Guardian, Ms Reeves said it would be 'irresponsible' to rule out the idea of tax rises and warned 'there are costs to what happened' with the welfare Bill. The Sunday Times reported that the two-child benefit cap could be unlikely to be scrapped – as many Labour backbenchers want – as ministers look to balance the finances.
Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Starmer has revealed himself to be the most politically hopeless PM of my lifetime
We are told that it was 'personal' reasons which caused Rachel Reeves to weep at Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday. No doubt that is true. But when a prominent person weeps on a public occasion, the tears are prompted by a confluence of the personal and the political. Whatever upset Ms Reeves felt was surely compounded by her desperate and isolated political situation following the collapse of the Government's welfare reform Bill. The first Rachel wept, as is recorded in the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah. She was weeping for her children, but hers were public tears too: she was revered as the wife of the patriarch Jacob and mother of Joseph. God told her: 'Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine ears from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded.' It has to be said that Sir Keir Starmer was rather less generous to his Rachel than was the Almighty to the Mother of Israel. When, across the floor of the House, Kemi Badenoch pointed out to him that his Chancellor 'looks absolutely miserable', he did not turn round to comfort or even to check. Nor did he take up the Leader of the Opposition's invitation to confirm Ms Reeves in her post. Before the session ended, the Prime Minister did say something about being 'grateful' to her, but by then it was too late. Afterwards, No 10 declared that Ms Reeves was 'going nowhere', a phrase which, in the circumstances, was either tin-eared or barbed. In an interview, Sir Keir insisted she would continue as Chancellor for the next election and for years beyond. He is in no position to make such a promise. People often complain about the 'bearpit' of PMQs. This week's half hour was certainly uncomfortable to watch, but it did show why such occasions can make a difference. In a few minutes of parliamentary theatre, we got to the heart of the matter. In passing, it is worth pointing out that Mrs Badenoch did well. With wit and concision, she identified Labour's key embarrassments – the second U-turn at the very last moment, the fact that a cost-cutting Bill will now save nothing at all and Sir Keir's problem that 'he does not know what he believes'. She seized the chance to get her own party back on the long road to the economic respectability it so badly lost in government. Whereas Labour had just voted for spending more money, she said, the Conservatives know the nation must 'live within its means'. Sir Keir's capitulation vacates the political ground of prudence, giving the Tories the chance to re-occupy it – and at a time when Reform has decided to become a big-spending party. In the end, those who want to give ever more public money to people who do not want to work are fewer than those who do work and will now almost certainly have to pay higher taxes. On this point, Mrs Badenoch spoke with justified confidence. An oddity caused by the slow Conservative leadership election process last year is that Mrs Badenoch has still not addressed her annual party conference as leader, so the troops do not feel they know their general. Now she has a victory under her belt to celebrate with them. She has won on some other subjects recently, such as the grooming gangs inquiry, but this week was her first big breakthrough. More important right now is what all this means for the Government which we might still have for four more years. Again, PMQs gave useful optics. Most of the time, the camera concentrated on just three people on the front bench – the Prime Minster in the middle, inexpressive as usual; to the right, the crumpled Chancellor, in a blue suit, trying and failing to conceal her distress; to the left, in a striking all-red number, the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, head erect and smiling in a nothing-to-do-with-me sort of way. You could see the future, and why it won't work. It still seems almost incredible that a government only a year old should have cut off its room for future progress so early. There may be a case that the public finances, though bad and getting worse, are not so disastrous that all is lost, but history does suggest that such a serious failure of economic and political will is very hard to come back from. Wilson's Labour government lost confidence after having to devalue the pound in 1967, and lost the election in 1970. Heath's Tories executed their U-turn on free markets and non-intervention in 1972, and lost (twice) in 1974. Labour went 'cap in hand' to the IMF in 1976, and lost to Mrs Thatcher in 1979. John Major's Tories won a general election in April 1992 but had to take the pound out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in September. Tony Blair trounced them in 1997. In some of these cases, notably Major's, the economy did recover, but in all of them the government was seen to have failed in its economic stewardship. The voters duly punished it. This time, the Government has undoubtedly failed. Labour's selling-point to the electorate a year ago was that, unlike the Tories, and particularly the horror story of Liz Truss, it would restore growth and control the public finances with enough discipline that the proceeds of that growth would improve public services. It has taken only 12 months, almost to the day, to discredit all those promises. In reaction, some have criticised the rebel Labour MPs who forced Sir Keir's retreat for their economic illiteracy. Downing Street special advisers speak unattributably to lobby journalists with foul-mouthed quotations about the idiocy and self-indulgence of their party's backbenchers. It is true that social media have made MPs more narcissistic and less loyal to their party. It is also true that failure to rein in welfare spending is – along with the NHS – the road to national ruin. But Sir Keir and his political advisers seem to have a very hazy idea of what it is like to be a member of Parliament. With all aspects of social policy, MPs will have numerous constituents who will be directly affected and will complain to them. Most MPs of the governing party will be prepared to justify unpopular government policy if they can do so as part of a big story of foreseeable recovery or of dire necessity. It is incredibly hard to do so, however, when the policy unexpectedly removes existing money from claimants, and when the overall picture of what the government is trying to do is so contradictory and confusing. In the case of personal independence payments (PIPs), there are a great many scandals (some recently documented by the TaxPayers' Alliance) about how easily people can get the money for inadequate or trumped-up reasons. A government set on persuasion could have dramatised such freeloading to win over voters. It did not. Instead, it suddenly threatened millions of claimants, thwarting reasonable expectations. You don't have to be a Zarah Sultana-style Corbynista to worry. Any decent MP would want to voice those discontents at Westminster. In my lifetime, and therefore in the lifetime of the great majority, no Labour government has ever been able to cope with bad economic conditions. They have been boom-time phenomena, triumphantly so in the case of Tony Blair's first two terms. Sir Keir's administration has quickly reverted to this depressing type, adding a political incompetence that would make anyone weep.
